And The Rest of the Day?
The day's report would not be complete without a brief wrap-up, following this morning's rude awakening:A big tree blew down in the rough winds we had last night (the same tree that a tree trimmer recently offered to take down for us). Fortunately, it didn't take anything else down with it.
My husband got his work van stuck in the yard trying to leave for work this morning. He was turning around and had to back onto the grass, which was laden with water from last night's rains.
Rescued Blue, the 10 week old puppy, from a strange accident involving his leg and a wrought iron candle holder. Much squealing ensued and because this happened on the front porch and blocked the door, pushing the door open to get to him caused much more (and louder) squealing. Finally, we managed to wrestle his leg out of a wrought iron curly-cue and he laid down to lick his wounds (he was fine 5 minutes later, no limping or any sign of injury).
Rescued Blue from another strange accident, this time involving his nose and a kitchen baker's rack/bookshelf. He was chewing on the metal side rail and stuck the top portion of his nose under the next wire, only when he tried to extricate himself, he kept pulling downward and his nose wouldn't budge. Again, much squealing ensued (the highest pitch squeal I've ever heard).
Rescued Blue from yet another, this time potentially fatal, incident involving a broken bottle of Mike's Hard Limeade. I looked out the kitchen window to see him happily trotting up the sidewalk with roughly 1/3 of a broken bottle in his mouth. He laid down on the front stoop and began chewing on it.
It's now 11:00 pm and I've been to the kitchen three times to take additional puppy-proofing measures (so far, he's tried to break into the cabinet underneath the sink, to get to the Drano and other cleaning products; he's chewed through the box of so-called septic cleaning packages consisting of some kind of bacteria and who knows what...I've never been convinced that these things actually do anything in the septic system, but I'm sure it doesn't belong in a puppy' intestines; and he's unscrewed the nuts and bolts off of his kennel and was chewing on those.
Blue may live to see another day, but I'm not giving him a very good 6-month prognosis.*
And finally, there were 5 extremely large (roughly the size of my pinkie) cockroaches at a board meeting I attended this evening in a very posh country club. The group was discussing "no kill" policies in private animal shelters. We killed all 5 cockroaches. (An aside...the board I am on does not profess to be a "No Kill" shelter, in other words, some might call us a "Kill" shelter...and yet we euthanize a much smaller percentage of animals than many that do call themselves "No Kill"...this seems to be a political hot button lately and we take some heat for it...we only euthanize animals that are untreatable or unmanageable...the discussion was whether to join the bandwagon of "No Kill" philosophers in the name of "branding" or maintain our integrity and continue to educate the public on what is humane and what is really going on in the shelter...consider this your public service announcement).**
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. My computer has become infected with one of those nasty pop-up viruses that offers me all kinds of sordid stuff and is slowing my machine down to a crawl. What happened to my firewall?!?! Blech.
* Do know that Blue has no less than 6 chew toys on the kitchen floor at all times. It will be a miracle if we don't trip on them and kill ourselves some night.
** See, if the rest of my life was going peachy, these things might have only been minor annoyances/cause for brief concern and life would have gone on, but when coupled with the Pink Elephant hovering over my shoulder, they feel more like huge, festering boils. In other words, they become blog fodder.
Labels: The Animals
posted by Gwynne @ 10:48 PM
7 Comments:
Oh.
My.
Are you using rawhide? It's not a cure-all, especially for puppies this age. But it does mitigate some of the damage. I still see Abbey trotting along with stupid stuff in her mouth (a plastic-wrapped roll of paper towels?). Topper still collects "stuff" in his crate. Whenever socks are missing, we check his crate. He doesn't chew them, though; just collects them.
The public, in general, is ignorant of the whole animal shelter situation. I blame PETA and HSUS and their campaigns of mis-information. But we don't want to get me started on that...
You need to push the reset button, but I imagine this is the worst time for a CPA to disappear!
Oh -- before I forget:
Take it from the wife of a septic system designer: Those additives are useless and, in fact, may be damaging your system. Seriously...lose 'em!
Aw, hugs.
And scritches for the puppy.
I know you're having a rough day. But you write in such a way that it can be FUNNY! I can just picture the puppy hijinks!
Blue sounds like a liability to himself! Is there a Darwin award for dogs? I bet he's adorable though :)
Glad the tree had the good sense to land elsewhere and that you are all fine though!
Sisiggy...I wondered about the septic cleaning stuff...when we first moved in, the telemarketers called and managed to convince me to buy a truckload of the stuff. Several years later, they called again to say they had upgraded the product and wouldn't I like to buy another truckload. I declined, telling him I hadn't yet used the last truckload (which is sitting on my shelf waiting to be devoured by a puppy in 5 years) and the septic system is working fine despite not using it regularly. On your advice, I think I'll finally dispose of the remains. Like vitamin supplements and colon cleansing tonics, septic system additives feed on our fear and lack of knowledge about things we cannot see, especially when it comes to...well, you know. ;-)
Lynellen and Bob-kat, even I was laughing by the end of the day, at Blue's apparent suicide mission. It reminded me of Harold's obsession with death and dying in Harold and Maude, the movie. :-)
I have two words for you.
Pig ears.
Well, three.
Petsmart.
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